


every word i say i truly mean

by tabris



Series: this unlikely story of us [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 04:58:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8131282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabris/pseuds/tabris
Summary: "You don't have to do this, you know."
Bucky sits on the edge of a hospital exam table in a country he didn't even know existed eighty years ago and sighs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Coheed and Cambria's [Here to Mars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svyLMR7yjhU).

"You don't have to do this, you know."

Bucky sits on the edge of a hospital exam table in a country he didn't even know existed eighty years ago and sighs.

"Yes I do. I can't take the risk of anything like that ever happening again."

"Which is why Natasha is currently raining down vengeance on every remaining Hydra and SHIELD outpost as we speak to keep it that way. Do you really want to tell her you think she can't do it?"

And isn't that just the damnedest thing? Decades frozen and used as a weapon and now he's got people like Natasha Romanoff out risking their lives for him. He hasn't quite figured out where that idea fits with his current world view. Somewhere between touching and terrifying. Kind of like Natasha.

"If you're doing it for yourself then I won't stop you. You've had enough choices taken away from you. But this, going back in... Are you doing this because you want to or because you feel like you have to?"

"I... Neither? Both? Shit, Steve, I have no idea what's in my head anymore. It's all in pieces and there's so many awful, horrible things that I did, _I_ did—"

"They _made_ you, you had no choice!"

He is so tired of hearing this. Bucky knows. He _knows_. Except.

"Not just after I fell! Before, during the war. Hell, before that even. Brooklyn. Maybe not as bad as the Winter Soldier, but I've done an awful lot of shit no one should be proud of."

Steve is silent for a long moment and Bucky's voice trails off into an awful quietness.

"You made me want to be better, and maybe I justified a lot by telling myself I was doing the dirty work so you didn't have to, so _no one else_ had to, but... I did it."

"That's not— You weren't the only one there, you can't take that all on yourself. Or pin your conscience on me, that's not fair."

"Steve—"

"No, listen. I thought I was doing the right thing at first, maybe even made everyone else think I was, too, but my hands aren't clean either. Not now, and not then. Can't you see that? I never went on a rescue mission, I came for _you_. And as happy as I was that the rest of the men got out all I could think about the whole time was getting to you. I went through those cells, through that whole place killing Hydra and freeing prisoners for the sole purpose of finding you. I would do it all again, _have_ done _,_ and if that doesn't make me selfish then I don't know what else possibly could."

Bucky sits back, stunned.

"Are you…?"

Steve can't possibly be saying what Bucky thinks, hopes he's saying. Not when he still has trouble feeling human most days, much less like an actual person, like Bucky Barnes.

" _Yes,_ " he says in a voice that immediately conjures memories of a much smaller, even more stubborn Steve. "I chose you. I'll always choose you. We've both changed but, well, you're it for me and I'm okay with that. More than okay. Happy."

"Steve," Bucky says, then stops. Tries to think. Can't. "I know my brain's a bit holey at the moment but I don't remember you being this talkative before, not unless someone got you started on the injustices of others."

Steve at least has the decency to look sheepish. After a second he shrugs.

"Sam spent a good six months trying to get me to talk and once I started it was like I couldn't stop. Spent too long holding everything in and now... Now there's no reason to. I wasted almost a century keeping a lid on things and I don't want to waste the now I've been given. Not now that I've got you back."

Bucky pulls Steve in and buries his face against Steve's ridiculous chest. "I'm not going anywhere, Steve, I promise."

The cryo chamber across the room looms open, waiting, offering a sort of solace that Bucky's hard pressed to not want. Except from here, with Steve's lips on his forehead, the warmth is feeling pretty good.

"You're going to make me talk to Sam aren't you?"

"Now where would you get an idea like that?"

 


End file.
